Turning
by La Musique
Summary: Random opinions.


Disclaimer: The story belongs to Mr. Hugo, the song to Mr. Kretzmer. The  
opinions are mine. Think of this as a rough copy. Right now I just needed  
to get thoughts on paper, because this story has moved me and continues to  
do so. In the near future, it may be polished and edited. Until then, as  
always, enjoy!  
  
Les Miserables: Turning  
  
"Did you see them  
Going off to fight?  
Children of the barricade  
Who didn't last the night?  
Did you see them  
Lying where they died?"  
  
He spoke of revolution. He was a radical, a dreamer, a madman, and there  
were those who were quick to tell him so. But he had a vision that most  
would not dare to think of. A husband and a father, a peasant and a  
soldier. Now a nameless corpse lying in the streets, face still young with  
an expression that could not be extinguished. But hope, it can be blown  
out, as with a candle, or all too easily covered.  
  
A family awaits him, a wife and two daughters. Three mouths to feed,  
unknowing that the streets run with the blood of their men. Poor blood,  
while the rich hide away, sheltered by their wealth.  
  
His eyes are still open, seeing a World, a justice and a peace that have  
yet to come.  
  
"Someone used to cradle them  
And kiss them when they cried"  
  
Only a mother can know what it is to loose a son. Empty words mean nothing,  
and a part of her has died with him.  
  
He was her hope, when his father left. The reason she forced herself to  
rise each night, selling her trinkets, selling herself. Had it been to her,  
she would have slept and never woken, but she had a mouth to feed, and so  
she lived. Though whether she lived at all was debatable. Living life  
through another until she lost all sense of reality and allusion.  
  
Did you see her? Kneeling beside a fallen boy, another prize in some  
soldier's game. Caught in crossfire. Disobeying his mother's orders, to  
watch his heroes bid for their freedom.  
  
Little did he know that he would take two lives when he died...  
  
"Did you see them lying side by side?  
Who will wake them?  
No one ever will  
No one ever told them  
that a summer day could kill"  
  
The streets of Paris are a grotesque portrait of oppression. The bid has  
failed.  
  
They had the power and the numbers to win. But the threat was too great,  
and price to pay too large. And so the poor hid, leaving their men to die.  
  
The poor and the rich, equal only in death. It was a time of such terror,  
and a time of such hopelessness. It was an idea of such multitude, of such  
daring, of such violence, and of such hate, they deemed it just what those  
rich bastards deserved.  
  
"They were schoolboys  
Never held a gun  
Fighting for a new world  
That would rise up like the sun  
Where's that new world now the fighting's done?"  
  
They dreamed of peace, they dreamed of freedom. Of a day without hunger, of  
a day without death, of the day when equality would rein among the living.  
Their dream shattered as quickly as the dawn broke, and the blood they  
dreamed of shedding was their own.  
  
"Nothing changes, nothing ever will"  
  
The dream has not changed, but neither has our bloodshed. Travel now, open  
your eyes to the horror, and your ears to the screaming, and say that  
things are different. You would be damned for your lies. Their lives were  
in vain, as ours are now.  
  
"Every year another brat, another mouth to fill  
Same old story. What's the use of tears?  
What's the use of praying  
If there's nobody who hears?"  
  
Would my God allow for such pain? Or have we grown too high ourselves, so  
that he cannot hear us?  
  
Have we deluded ourselves into a state of such pretension, that we do not  
see pain... death... suffering? Are we as the rich were, hiding behind  
stone walls, drinking our wine, and watching our operas, blind and deaf to  
life?  
  
Dreaming a dream that we shall never realize.  
  
"Turning turning turning turning turning  
Through the years  
Turning, turning, turning through the years  
Minutes turn to hours, and hours into years  
Nothing changes. Nothing ever can.  
Round about the roundabout, and back where you began.  
Round and round and back where you began!"  
  
It is a continuous cycle, and such chains are never broken. 


End file.
